Welcome to Talk Classical - A community covering every aspect of classical music!

You are currently viewing our boards as a guest which gives you limited access to view most discussions and access our other features. By joining our community you will have access to post topics, upload content and access many other features. Registration is absolutely free so please, join our classical music forums!

If you have any problems with the registration process or your account login, please contact us. Please note usernames can only include letters and spaces.

Favorite Symphonic Movements

In this thread, you need merely list your favorite movements from any number symphonies. List as many as you want. You may have ties if you really feel it necessary. Think carefully. Make your list as varied as possible. Add as much information (such as full composer name, number of symphony, opus number, title of movement, etc.) If you really want, you may upload mp3's. My list might be the following:

My first thought was - how do you separate the movements of a symphony. It should be taken as a complete work. But that's not always true I think. There are many symphonies I like only parts of. My favorite single movements out of context will probably be like most others. Let's see:

Beethoven - No. 9, movement 4. This movement is close to a religious experience for me. Plenty more Beethoven movements move me too, of course.

Brahms - No. 4, movement 1. This is Brahms saying farewell.

Bruckner - No. 9, movement 2. This is awesome, ominous, and memorable. I wonder if it inspired Holst's Mars.

Mozart - No. 39, movement 3. I have always stated I don't like Mozart very much, but this one movement, if played fast enough gets me going. It's not a very famous Mozart symphony, but this movement is the one that is leading me to finally "get" Mozart. I love the itchy, itchy rhythm of the strings

Oy vey, this is impossible! So, an arbitrary limitation to a baker's dozen, and no more than one per composer, the central criterion being that I'm most aware of having hummed or whistled something from the chosen movement fairly frequently recently....

Oh! If you had selected the 4th movement I would have been right there with you. It's tough for me to select any single movements out of a symphony, but if I had to it would be that and the Allegretto from Beethoven's 7th--it defines the entire work.